Washington, B.C. leaders eye high-speed rail line

British Columbia Premier John Horgan: He is joining the push for high-speed rail, which would reduce Seattle-to-Vancouver travel time to less than an hour.

British Columbia Premier John Horgan: He is joining the push for high-speed rail, which would reduce Seattle-to-Vancouver travel time to less than an hour.

Photo: New Democratic Party

Photo: New Democratic Party

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British Columbia Premier John Horgan: He is joining the push for high-speed rail, which would reduce Seattle-to-Vancouver travel time to less than an hour.

British Columbia Premier John Horgan: He is joining the push for high-speed rail, which would reduce Seattle-to-Vancouver travel time to less than an hour.

Photo: New Democratic Party

Washington, B.C. leaders eye high-speed rail line

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Gov. Jay Inslee and British Columbia Premier John Horgan were dreaming big dreams of high-speed rail service at a Friday meeting in Vancouver, but sharing a wariness toward sending more oil tankers through the Salish Sea.

Horgan announced that British Columbia is joining Washington and Oregon in a study to advance the prospect of high-speed rail service that would travel the 300-plus miles between Portland, Seattle and Vancouver.

"This is not an opportunity we can let pass by," said Horgan, committing $300,000 (Canadian) to the second phase of studying the feasibility of high-speed rail. The Washington Legislature has already committed $1.2 million to the effort.

"The convenience of a one-hour trip between Vancouver and Seattle would create countless opportunities for people in both B.C. and Washington, from sports or concert getaways for families, to untold economic growth potential for businesses," said Horgan.

The two leaders shared a worry of going too fast on another front. Inslee, joining Horgan at a Vancouver, B.C., news conference, embraced the province's call to slow down and study environmental impacts of a giant proposed pipeline and oil export terminal.

A Washington Department of Transportation study, released late last year, looked at a link that would reduce Vancouver-Seattle travel to less than an hour, and Seattle-Portland journeys to as little as a half hour.

The WSDOT study, examining magnetic levitation technology, pegged the cost of the three-city link between $24 billion and $42 billion (U.S,) and projected 1.8 million riders each year. A California high-speed rail link, the pet project of Gov. Jerry Brown, has gone billions over budget and is running years behind schedule.

Inslee waved off the red flag from the Golden State.

"Any mistakes they have made, we can put in the bank," the governor said.

California has broken ground on its $68 billion high-speed rail system, promising to combat global warming while whisking travelers between L.A. and San Francisco in less than three hours.

Media: tvjson

Inslee, once (and forever) a high school jock, said "we cannot wait" to use high speed rail to carry fans to what will be "the world's greatest hockey rivalry," between the existing NHL Vancouver Canucks and the hoped-for Seattle franchise.

Premier Horgan had reason for delight: Jay Inslee has his back on an energy confrontation in the Great White North.

The government of Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau backs construction of an 890,000-barrel-a-day oil pipeline that would carry bitumen crude from Alberta's tar sands to an oil port at Burnaby, B.C., just east of Vancouver.

The pipeline would put 34 laden oil tankers a month into the waters of the Salish Sea shared by the two countries, and through Haro Strait, which separates the San Juan Islands from B.C.'s Gulf Islands.

The Horgan government is resisting the pipeline, or at least wants comprehensive studies of the potential impact of oil spills. Desperate for the pipeline, Alberta has threatened to cut back oil shipments to its western neighbor. About 7,000 people demonstrated against the pipeline in Burnaby last Saturday.

Inslee noted that the pipeline would bring "a dramatic increase in oil tanker traffic" and that Washington recently rejected a mammoth oil port proposed for Vancouver, Washington, on the Columbia River.

"We share the Haro Strait," Inslee said. "We share the Salish Sea. We share the most beautiful place in North America."

The governor voiced concern that existing ship traffic is disturbing the iconic orcas seen in such waters as Haro Strait and Active Pass in the Gulf Islands. The whales' main food source, Chinook salmon, are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.

His sense, said Inslee, is that Premier Horgan "is giving the people of British Columbia the opportunity to be heard" since they would bear the environmental consequences of any spill from the pipeline, or tankers carrying its oil to foreign markets.

The governor and premier argued that high-speed rail is the transportation of the future, a future that has arrived from Japan to China to Great Britain to France.

There is nothing Japan can do that we can't do in the Northwest, Inslee argued. High-speed rail would, he said, "help create jobs, generate affordable housing options, ease freeway traffic and clean our air."

Horgan argued that a fast train would cut down the increasing congestion on highways linking the Northwest's three great cities, and have a "positive effect on climate" by reducing emissions.